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Profilfoto Alla Klimenkowa

Dr. phil. Alla Klimenkowa-Krohner

DAAD PRIME PostDoc Fellow (University of Texas at Austin)

Forschung

Main research areas

  • Discourse analysis (with regard to racialized language) and language ideologies

  • Metaphor analysis

  • Sociolinguistics and language contact  (in particular, mixed varieties)

  • Multilingualism, bilingualism (in particular, code-switching)

  • Creole languages

  • Historical linguistics and etymology

Aktuelle Projekte

  • Metaphorical framing of the concept of mestizaje in Latin American and Caribbean essays in the 20th century

Key words: mestizaje, metaphor, identity discourse, Latin American essay, 20th century

Nowadays when the notion of “race” is decisively abandoned as scientifically inviable, the popularity of the concept of mestizaje reminds us of a deep influence of “racial” component on social imagination, especially in the contexts of identity quest (Tilley 2005). The metaphor of mestizaje is undoubtedly the most distinctive and the most impactful narrative metaphor (Zinken at al. 2008) in discourses on national identity in Latin America and the Caribbean of the 20th century. It perfectly fitted into a new narrative paradigm that introduced a forward-looking vision of national identity in terms of a hybrid cultural formation whose final configuration and image would be revealed only in an unspecified yet certain future (Alonso 1998).

The project reconstructs a network of discursive engagements with mestizaje in selected essays of outstanding Spanish American intellectuals beginning with the first half of the 20th century and beyond. Especially in the light of the pertinent questions of our time about conviviality, multiculturality and multiethnicity, we focus on the subject of bi-culturalism in the discourses of popular national identity. The selection of representative intellectuals for the purposes of this study was determined by criteria such as their status of independent social critics, national charisma, the claim to universalism, recognition as creative writers, usually identified with a particular periodical (revista) (Miller 1999). The examination of reciprocity between various visions of mestizaje, conceptual and discursive effects and image patterns that at different points of this century seek to articulate self-definition of Latin America is important to answer the questions concerning the circulation and rhetorical reproduction of the concept of mestizaje within the postcolonial space until our time, beyond national and continental confines, as well as the questions of its ideological charge and social categorizations. In this respect, a particular attention will be given to Mexican-Antillean interconnections as well as to contributions from Central America.

From a discourse-analytical perspective, the central interest is to outline how metaphors contribute or fail to overcome the “racialized” way to see, to imagine and to represent postcolonial Latin American societies. A particular attention will be given to the extent to which metaphoric, referentialist language of apparently progressive discourses on ethnic mixture masks an undercurrent of racial essentialism and invokes racist stereotypes.

From a cognitive-semantic perspective, this study is a contribution to understanding the impact of cognitive conceptualizations such as metaphors on the communication about “racial” issues in a postcolonial and postnational era.

The project 1) departs from the writings by José Vasconcelos, “the man responsible for bringing together many of the most important architects, intellectuals, and artists of the post-armed, cultural-nationalist phase of the revolution” (Hedrick 2003). His La raza cósmica (1925) was the foundational essay of the modern discourse on mestizaje. Its enormous cognitive appeal throughout and beyond the continent is, however, hardly explored (cf. Casáus Arzú 2008). The project focuses the interrelationship between multivoiced appropriations of mestizaje, e.g. its culinary, biological, musical and other manifestations and replacements in influential essays of the time by B. Carrión, P. Cuadra, R. Fernandez Retamar, W. Frank, J. O’Gormann, P. Henríquez Ureña, J. Mariátegui, V. Masferrer Mónico, F. Ortiz, A. Reyes, R. Rojas, among others.

2) The project also traces how new conceptualizations of Latin America were made visible on the international level, in the USA in particular, for example, by means of university lectures and contributions in the press.

Abgeschlossene Projekte

  • "Mestiz*innen und Métissage: koloniale Konzepte in globaler Perspektive” (University of Cologne, MECILA)

  • Edition and linguistic analysis of L’Histoire naturelle des Indes (“Drake manuscript”, ab. 1600), in collaboration with the FAU Erlangen (Prof. Dr. Silke Jansen), Morgan Library New York)

  • “METAPRES. El discurso metalingüístico en la prensa española” (University of Göttingen)

  • “Multilingualism from a constructive perspective” (FAU Erlangen)

  • “Hispania Submersa –Spanish heritage of the Caribbean” (University of Mainz/ University of Erlangen; funded by the German Research Foundation; project supervisor Jun.-Prof. Dr. Silke Jansen)

Publikationen

2017. Sprachkontakt und lexikalische Innovation in der karibischen Kontaktzone: die Beispiele bozal, cimarrón und criollo. Hamburg: Buske, Kreolische Bibliothek. 

Rezensiert:

  • Natalie Operstein (2018), In: Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 33:2, 453–456,

  • Philipp Krämer (2019), In: Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur 129, 87–91.

  • Peter Stein (2020), In: Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 136(4):1164–1167

2026. “Language contact and language ideologies”. In: Cerno, Leonardo, Hans-Jörg Döhla, Miguel Gutiérrez Maté, Robert Hesselbach, Joachim Steffen (eds.). Contact varieties of Spanish and Spanish-lexified contact varieties. An international handbook. Handbooks for Linguistics and Communication Science. Mouton de Gruyter.

2025. “Naming creole varieties on the Cape Verde Islands and in Upper Guinea from the perspective of language ideologies”. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.23028.kli

2024. « La ligne de couleur » dans l’histoire de crioulo, criollo et créole. Études créoles [En ligne], 41 | 1-2 | 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudescreoles/1750; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/11pa0

2024. « La Martinique et la Guadeloupe: la construction du rapport au contact linguistique créole-français de la perspective ‘profane’ ». Dans: Becker, Lidia/ Sandra Herling/ Holger Wochele (edd.). Manuel de Linguistique Populaire. Berlin/ Boston: de Gruyter, 257-275.

2022. “Explaining Latin America to the Yankees: University lectures by J. Vasconcelos and G. Freyre from the perspective of critical metaphor analysis and discourse analysis”. iMex revista México interdisciplinario, 102-123; DOI: 10.23692/Articulos_iMex2.4.

2021. «L’ethos d’une défenseure de la langue : le cas de Thérèse Léotin». Dans: Bernard Barbeau, Geneviève/ Franz Meier/ Sabine Schwarze (edd.). Conflits sur/dans la langue : perspectives linguistiques, argumentatives et discursives. Berlin : Peter Lang, 119-143.

2021. “El español entre la lingua franca y la lengua ‘nacional’ mitificada”. En: Schrader-Kniffki, Martina/ Julia Montemayor Gracia (ed.). ¿Unidad en la superdiversidad? Lugares de contacto entre el español y las lenguas amerindias en el siglo XXI. Berlin: Peter Lang, 19–44.

2021. “Nacionalismo e ideologías lingüísticas en América”. In: Eckkrammer, Eva (ed.). Manual del español en América. Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter (= Manuals of Romance Linguistics 20), 805–817.

2020. ‚„Zentrale“ und „randständige“ Gebiete in der Romanistik? Die Beispiele Sprachkontakt, Mehrsprachigkeit und Kreolsprachen“. In: Becker, Lidia/ Julia Kuhn/ Christina Ossenkop/ Claudia Polzin-Haumann/ Elton Prifti (edd.). Romanistisches Kolloquium XXXII. Fachbewusstsein der Romanistik. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 103-135. (zusammen mit Silke Jansen).

2018. “Identifying kréyòl and criollo in the contemporary French Caribbean and Spanish America”. In: Bandau, Anja/ Anne Brüske/ Natascha Ueckmann (edd.). Reshaping (g)local dynamics of the Caribbean: Relaciones y Deconexiones – Relations and Disconnections – Relations et Déconnexions. Heidelberg: heiUP, 367–383. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.314.534.

2016. „Switching von kognitiven Schemata beim simultanen bilingualen Erwerb der nominalen Pluralmorphologie (am Sprachenpaar Deutsch-Spanisch)“. In: Robles i Sabater, Ferran/ Daniel Reimann/ Raúl Sánchez Prieto (edd.). Sprachdidaktik Spanisch – Deutsch. Forschungen an den Schnittstellen von Linguistik und Fremdsprachendidaktik. Tübingen: Narr, 171–183.

2015. „Wo versteckt sich (Ci-) Marron? Sprachkontakt als Auslöser des Bedeutungswandels von cimarrón/mar(r)on im Spanischen und Antillen-Französischen“. In: JournaLIPP, 4, 97–113. DOI: https://lipp.ub.uni-muenchen.de/lipp/issue/view/287.

2014a. “Simbiosis lingüística en el mundo caribeño: una contribución ecolingüística”. In: Rovira Santos, José María (ed.). Fronteras y diálogos: el español y otras lenguas. Colección lingüística hispánica. Lugo: Axac, 117–130.

2014b. “Nuevo significado a través del encadenamiento metonímico”. In: Bułat Silva, Zuzanna/ Monika Głowicka/ Justyna Wesoła (edd.). Variación, contraste, circulación. Perspectivas lingüísticas en el hispanismo actual. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 65–71.

2012. „Bozal: Was hat der Maulkorb mit Basken und Afrikanern zu tun?“. In: Dahmen, Wolfgang/ Günter Holtus/ Johannes Kramer/ Michael Metzeltin/ Wolfgang Schweickard/ Otto Winkelmann. (edd.). America Romana. Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik, Bd. 535. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto, 83–111.

  • Amossy, Ruth/Orkibi, Eithan. (Hrsg.). 2021. Ethos collectif et identités sociales. Paris: Garnier. In: Zeitschrift für Diskursforschung Heft 1/2022.

  • García Valle, Adela. 2019. Comentario de textos hispánicos: análisis del comentario filológico. València: tirant humanidades, 166 p. En: Revue de Linguistique Romane.

  • Boudreau, Annette. 2016. À l’ombre de la langue légitime – L’Acadie dans la Francophonie. Paris: Garnier. (Linguistique variationnelle 2), 297 p. Dans: Revue de Linguistique Romane.

Vita

CURRENT POSITION

Since 11/2024 University of Siegen (Germany), University of Texas at Austin: DAAD PRIME PostDoc Fellow

Research Project Metaphorical framing of the concept of mestizaje in Latin American and Caribbean essays in the 20th century

PREVIOUS POSITIONS

2016 – 2022 Georg-August University of Göttingen (Germany)

  • Scientific Assistant in Romance Linguistics (Spanish, French)

  • Erasmus Coordinator for the exchange programme with the Universitat de València and the Aix-Marseille Université

  • Scientific adviser in professional education courses for French teachers by the Institute for Quality Development in the State of Lower Saxony 

2017 – 2019 University of Vienna (Austria)

  • University Professor in Romance Linguistics (Spanish, Portuguese, French)

2016 – 2018 University of Hildesheim (Germany)

  • Scientific Assistant in Romance Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at the Department of Intercultural Communication 

2013 – 2016 Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany)

  • Scientific Assistant and Lecturer in Romance Linguistics; 

  • Doctoral thesis: “Language contact and lexical innovation in the Caribbean contact zone: the case of bozal, cimarrón and criollo”; Awarded summa cum laude (14/09/2015) and the Lilli Bechmann-Rahn-Award 2015 for an outstanding dissertation in the humanities at the Faculty of Philology

2010 – 2013 Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz (Germany)

  • Scientific Assistant in Romance Linguistics

EDUCATION

2013 – 2015 PhD in Romance Studies at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg

Dissertation title: Sprachkontakt und lexikalische Innovation in der karibischen Kontaktzone: die Fallbeispiele bozal, cimarrón und criollo / Language Contact and Lexical Innovation in the Contact Zone of the Caribbean: the case of bozal, cimarrón and criollo

Distinction: summa cum laude

Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Silke Jansen, Prof. Dr. Ralph Ludwig, Prof. em. Dr. Annegret Bollée

2004 – 2009 Study in Romance, English, and Russian Philology at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany)

  • 1. State Examination for upper secondary level teaching in Spanish and English / Erste Staatsprüfung für das Lehramt an Gymnasien (1,1)

  • 2. State Examination for upper secondary level teaching in Spanish and English / Zweite Staatsprüfung für das Lehramt an Gymnasien (2,0) (11/2023 – 10/2024)

Degree Thesis: Der frühe Spracherwerb bilingualer Kinder mit Migrations-hintergrund (am Sprachenpaar Deutsch-Spanisch) (Early German-Spanish bilingual acquisition among children with migration background) Distinction: 1,0

2005 – 2006 Study in Spanish Studies and Art at the Universidad de Extremadura, Cáceres (Spain)

1995 – 2002 Study in German Studies and History at the Franzysk-Skaryna State University, Gomel (Belarus); 

German and English Secondary Education Teacher Diploma

Degree Thesis: Contrastive analysis of figurative language in the original and its translations (the example of Germanic and Slavic languages): “Die Buddenbrooks” by T. Mann; Distinction: 1,0

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

  • German Association of Scholars in Romance Studies/ Deutscher Romanistenverband (DRV)
  • German Association of Scholars in Spanish Studies/ Deutscher Hispanistenverband (DHV)
  • German Association of Scholars in Portuguese Studies/ Deutscher Lusitanistenverband (DLV)
  • Associação de Crioulos de Base Lexical Portuguesa e Espanhola (ACBLPE)
  • Society for Caribbean Research (Socare)

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

since 2025 – cooperation within the research project “TransExil”, University of Hannover

since 2025 – Research Collaborator at the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies (LLILAS), University of Texas at Austin

since 2024 – member of the Comité Científico del Congreso Internacional de Sociolingüística del Español, Lisbon

03/2025 – 03/2026 Research at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, the University of Texas at Austin

05/2015; 02/2014 Research at the Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Seville

02/2012 – 04/2012 Field research in Martinique and Guadeloupe

12/2011 Research at the Bibliothèque du Laboratoire de Parole & Langage, Aix-en-Provence (France)

06/2011 Research at the National Archive of Portugal, Lisbon

02/2011 – 03/2011 Research at the Archivo del Reino de Valencia, Valencia

12/2010 Research at the Spanish National Library, Madrid

INTERNATIONAL TEACHING EXPERIENCE

10/2017 – 01/2019 Visiting professor at the Department of Romance Studies, University of Vienna

02/2018; 05/2016 Erasmus professor at the Departamento de Filología Española, Universitat de València;

05/2015 Erasmus professor at the Departamento de Filología Alemana, Universidad de Sevilla

03/2011 Visiting professor at the Facultat de Filologia, Universitat de València